All items listed and reviewed are available for purchase directly from Brickbat Books, although quantities are limited. Brickbat Books is located at 709 South Fourth Street, in the heart of Fabric Row, in Philadelphia.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

For months I followed strangers on the street. For the pleasure
of following them, not because they particularly interested me. I
photographed them without their know-ledge, took note of their
movements, then finally lost sight of them and forgot them.At the end of January 1980, on the streets of Paris, I followed a
man whom I lost sight of a few minutes later in the crowd. That very
evening, quite by chance, he was introduced to me at an opening. During
the course of our conversation, he told me he was planning an imminent
trip to Venice. I decided to follow him.

—from Suite Vénitienne by Sophie Calle

In Suite Vénitienne, Sophie Calle’s first artist’s book—and
the crucible of her inimitable and provocative fusion of investigatory
methods, fictional constructs, the plundering of real life and the
artful composition of self—she notates, in diaristic, time-stamped
entries, her surveillance of Henri B. in Venice. She also carefully
observes her own emotions as she searches for, finds and follows him.
Intentionally losing herself as she wanders the labyrinthine streets of
Venice, the city becomes a repository of her desires. She must remind
herself that while it feels like she’s in love, she is not; that his
elusivity may be more appealing than actually knowing him; and that the
gap is wide between her own thoughts and his, which she cannot know.
Her investigation is both methodical (calling every hotel, visiting
the police station) and arbitrary (sometimes following a stranger—a
flower delivery boy, for instance—hoping someone might lead her to him).
She sometimes tells the truth (when she enlists Venetian friends of her
own friends who lend a phone, a look-out point, and make inquiries on
her behalf). And sometimes she does not, inventing stories to entice
strangers to come to her aid.
Once she does find him and follows him, “what we see,” as Larry
Rinder writes in his essay “Sophie Calle and the Practice of Doubt,” “is
not the object in closer view but the measure of the distance in
between.” Henri B., as he wanders and photographs Venice often in the
company of another woman, is still an enigma whom Calle observes from
the semi-obscurity of the shadows where she hides in disguise. Once he
confronts her—after she has ventured too close—he tells her she
should’ve masked her eyes which is what ultimately gave her away.
This Siglio reissue is a completely new iteration of Suite Vénitienne,
designed in collaboration with Calle, to be the definitive
English-language edition. Printed on Japanese paper with a die-cut hard
cover and gilded edges, this new, beautiful Siglio edition allows
readers to devour this compelling and crucial work.